Former bath salts addict describes battling synthetic drug nightmare

TUCSON - The synthetic drugs known as "bath salts" are becoming a national problem.

Users say the high they get from bath salts is like a combination of meth and LSD.

Doctors say it can cause psychotic behavior: bizarre, violent episodes, and even death.

A Tucson man says the horrible highs from bath salts scared him sober. "With all the drugs that i've seen

and that I've experimented with, this blows the rest out of the water by a long shot. It's absolutely horrifying," said the recovering addict who requested to remain anonymous.

Now in his mid 30's, he started drinking when he was just 14, quickly moving on to pot, cocaine, and heroin.

He eventually started experimenting with bath salts, but that didn't last long. After three months of getting high on bath salts, he gave it up.

One year later he says the horrific hallucinations are still burned into his mind's eye. "I would have images of the most horrible things that a human can imagine. People being murdered, people being raped, stuff like that. And they would just shoot into my head and I couldn't get them out," he said.The images were so life-like, he couldn't cope with them. "Mostly human bodies being mutilated - stuff like that. It got so bad that sometimes I would cut my flesh, and I'm not a cutter, I'm not a person that would ever hurt myself," he said.

Not just visions - he also heard voices. Voices so convincing he did whatever they told him to do. "Crazy things run through people's backyards, chasing people that weren't there, following voices that were in my head. I've never heard voices prior to taking bath salts," he said.

After living through his bath salt-induced nightmares, this former user says he no longer fears death. "The things that i saw on bath salts are much worse than death to me. I would rather be lying under ground and have my family think good of me than be running around talking to people that aren't there, just the world to see me as a complete insane person."